Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I've been really busy with work at the moment to work on any new content so i thought i'd take a moment to reflect.

It was about a year ago i decided i wanted to make a comic book of some sort so i tried to come up with something . In the end i decided that a good idea would be to just mash all the stuff i liked the most into one setting.

The first ingredient was guns, or just military hardware in general. Materials of a military nature have always been my passion. I've always loved military collectibles, Tom Clancy novels and games like Modern Warfare of Operation Flashpoint.

And ingredient two was kemonomimi, or characters with animal ears and tails. Almost certainly a byproduct of too much anime and manga and one of my favorite things to draw, my sketchbooks never had a shortage of catgirls and the like.

So when those two came together in my head Project J was born. I was never good at writing storylines so originally i designed it as more of a series of one-off stories with heaps of action and no real overall plot. This became the original Project J.

In the end i created 6 pages before some technical issues with photoshop slowed production to a standstill. I also wanted to take more time to improve my artwork and be sure about the design and style.

Then about 2 months ago Project J began to dominate my thoughts once again but this time it was different. I came to realize that over time when i thought about the characters i had unwittingly began filling in the gaps. As i gave the characters background or created new characters to fill various roles a plot began to emerge and soon became impressed with my creating.

Armed with a new improved story and a desire to create my work in a more serious art style i decided to try and take Project J to the next level, and here we are.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

But first a little background.
Basically the Project J story is set in a sort of sci-fi alternate history where, back in the late 50's a military medical research program stumbled upon a way to artificially conceive humans infused with the DNA of other species. The military secretly expanded and funded the project with the hope of creating soldiers with the superhuman abilities of animals.

Soon the first generation of about 40 engineered humans were born. Dubbed "Crossbreeds", most were bred as part dog or part cat, and were raised in comfortable conditions at a secret research institute. There were given an advanced education and military training under the close scrutiny of scientists and researchers. The results were promising and many of the more successful subjects saw trial deployments in the closing stages of the Vietnam War.

But the results weren't exactly what the military had expected, with many also inheriting drawbacks or flaws from their respective animal types, usually in the form of aggression, recklessness or any number of mild personality disorders. This, along with the fact that the crossbreed process only took hold in female subjects, meant that the project never moved past the experimental phase.

In the 80's the programs existence was leaked and the resulting scandal forced the military to go public with the crossbreed program. In the following years the program was outsourced to a civilian research group who took over operation of the institute and the rules forcing subjects into military service were abolished, allowing crossbreeds to pursue whatever career they wished after graduation.

Alright so that's the gist of it.

So Moxka is my female lead. She's cheeky but loyal and energetic, often to the point of recklessness. I tried to draw her to reflect that, with her short scruffy hair and often wearing a big grin.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Hey just a quick update to keep things rolling. Thought I'd post some of my notes and concept art while work continues on chapter one.

Today i'll start with my main protagonist Ace "Spook" Micheals.
I guess i designed Spook to be a bit of questionable character, almost an anti-hero of sorts, he's the confident and cunning leader who makes his own rules and is always on the lookout for a fight to cash in on.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ok then.
I've decided to start up a blog here to keep folks up to date on the progress of my comic book. I'm already hard at work on the rough plans for the first chapter so when i start doing final versions i'll post the pages here for all to see. Of course feel free to comment on anything, i'm always looking for opinions or inspiration.